Newbie says hello.

As I am completely new to this hobby, and the forum, I thought I'd better say hello before posting numerous questions I have to ask.

As said, I'm very new to robotics, electronics and especially programming, but am determined to learn, and enjoy myself along the way.

I retired not long ago (probably why it's taking me ages to understand the programming side, especially - aging grey cells), and my family bought me a Robonova 1 kit, to keep me occupied. Failing eyesight, and shaky bones, meant it was certainly a challenge with all those small screws. I have since made a new head for him, I didn't like the one he came with, and it didn't move, so that's been changed. I'm also currently making a pair of hands for him, along the lines of the Mellissa hands, but having only hand tools and no proper workshop, they aren't particularly good. As I nicknamed him Bob, these are going to be Hand Of Bob.

I have also built a Photovore using a tutorial on Society Of Robots, and have also added a Sharp IR for obstacle avoidance. The programming of these took me ages to do, as I am new to this as well. Even learning to flash the microcontroller was a hurdle. Anyway, both work, and gave me a real buzz when they did so, especially the obstacle avoidance.

Having looked at all the robots built by the members here, I don't think my efforts are worthy of posting pictures/videos, but I am determined to learn more, and certainly congratulate all of you on your expertise, and thank you all for a great site.

Thanks for introducing yourself. It sounds like you've taken a look around the site. Hopefully you have taken a few minutes to read the Rules, which will make your participation more effective for everyone.

Despite what you say, it sounds like you have already learned quite a lot, and have created some decent robots. Please don't feel that your bots are not good enough to post. Share them and you will get comments and suggestions, and other can learn for you too. We have all levels of experience participating at LMR. I'm not sure we've had anyone post a robot based on the Robonova kit yet, so I think it would be very interesting to see what you've done with it.

If you are lookking to stick with the Robonova platform, that's just great. There haven't been too many humanoid style robots posted here, so by all means, explore, learn and share what you know. If you are interested in expanding to other platforms, there is the Start Here robot, which is very approachable for beginners. It also provides quick satisfaction of a completed and working robot in a short period of time, while teaching some basics and providing a platform for more learning.

That robot is based on the Picaxe processor. If you are interested, there are many other processor choices. If you are willing to tackle a C programming-like environment, the Arduino processors are really nice and there is a lot of community support within and outside of LMR. There have been some "Start Here Robot" style bots posted recently on this site. The search box at the top-right of the website is your friend. So take a look around.

Again, you are welcome here. 'All LMR is belong to us" is a motto that basically means that anyone can make contributions and we all help make the site better by participating. I hope we see your stuff here soon. Welcome aboard.